Although I am not in Bangalore, I make sure that I am constantly tuned-in to what’s happening in Bangalore. I do this by usually reading the Times of India online and by irritating my friends with innumerable calls. I can’t help but miss Bangalore. I came across this interesting concept in today’s newspaper.

Dial for news from All India Radio

At least 10,000 people in Karnataka learnt about HRD minister Arjun Singh’s speech on reservations, the office-of-profit controversy, the Naxal attack on a marriage party in Maharashtra, the Sensex recovery… just by dialling four numbers!

Yes, you don’t have to adjust your tuner to listen to AIR news now. Just dial 1259 (English) and 1258 (Kannada) to hear AIR headlines from your landline. The facility was inaugurated on Tuesday by BSNL CGM (Karnataka Telecom circle) Ramaganapathy and AIR additional director General Akshay Rout at the All India Radio office. To avail the facility, the subscriber has to pay Re 1 per call. “We have been making announcements about the service for the past few days. By about 4 pm, we received at least 10,000 calls; a majority of them were for Kannada,’’ said AIR regional news unit in-charge M Nagendraswamy.

The facility can also be accessed on STD/ISD through landlines 22377525 for Kannada and 22377530 for English. The numbers should be prefixed by the country/city code. “Presently, the subscriber can only listen to headlines. We will introduce a facility where they can choose news modules like sports or business,’’ said Nagendraswamy.

End of article.

I think it’s a great concept. I am not sure if any of you have tried it already. If you have, then please let me know how good or bad the service is.